As national employment trends continue to be bad news for the jobless and underemployed, the legal profession is also posting declining employment numbers. With one big exception, that is: the current boom in jobs for patent attorneys.

In a Bloomberg report by Sophia Pearson, she writes that IP lawyers “are in such demand that their specialty may account for more than 15 percent of law firm job openings while representing just 3 percent of U.S. lawyers.”